


Life After Death

by leonidaslion



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Character Study, Drama, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-01-16
Updated: 2011-01-16
Packaged: 2017-10-14 19:31:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,651
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/152695
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/leonidaslion/pseuds/leonidaslion
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Winchesters consider what's in store once they've shuffled off their mortal coil.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Life After Death

John believes in life after death, of course: after all the shit he’s seen, he’d have to be an idiot not to. He’s just not sure where he’s headed, when the hourglass finally runs out. Hopes that all the lives he’s saved will be enough to let him see Mary again, wants to cup her face in his hands, feel her hair against his skin. Wants to drink her in, wrap himself around her and just let everything else fall away. Thinks that might be what Heaven’s like.

But there are some days when he doubts himself.

Days like today, sitting next to his son’s hospital bed, listening to the steady rasp of the respirator the doctors have hooked Dean up to because he can’t breathe on his own. John can’t sense his son in that broken shell, and he doesn’t have the faith Sam exudes from every pore that Dean will pull through this the way he pulled through everything else. He wishes he could throw this on Sam’s lap, and he’s tried, but he can’t silence that voice that’s been beating through him ever since he woke up: _my fault, I did this to him, to them._

John can’t save his sons. He can’t patch Dean’s wounds up the way he did when the boys were still small, can’t protect Sam from whatever darkness lies before him. But he knows someone who can give them a chance, at least, and when Sam gets back from Bobby’s John is going to sell his revenge in return for Dean’s life and then bow out gracefully stage left because he and Sam can’t keep from butting heads, and things are rapidly coming to a boil.

Sam needs John gone, needs not to be distracted from his own private battles by a man who was too foolish and slow to stop this before it started. He needs his brother to even have a chance to get through what’s coming, and John will do everything in his power to give his boys that opportunity. It might be the first good thing he’s ever done for them.

Because John’s fucked up a lot in his lifetime, and he’s done more than his fair share of things he regrets, but nothing more so than dragging his sons along on this crusade. He knows what he’s done to them, what he’s made of Dean especially, and it keeps him up nights. Leaves him restless for another kill to wash the sour-bitter taste of guilt from his mouth.

***

John believes in life after death; he’s just not sure where he’s headed. He prays for Mary with every beat of his heart, but sometimes, like now, with his mouth breathing those cold, damning words into his eldest son’s ear, he knows that even a lifetime of good deeds isn’t enough to make up for this. But where he’s headed isn’t important anymore, and the only life after death that matters are the lives of his sons. And the death? That’s his to keep.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Dean’s going to Valhalla when he dies. Sam knows this instinctually, the same way he knows how to breathe or smile. If he knows anyone who’s meant for an afterlife that’s an endless cycle of fighting and fucking and feasting, it’s his brother. And the best part of Valhalla? Dean would say it’s the Valkyries: big-breasted women with big attitudes and swords to match. But Sam knows that it’s the way that nothing’s for keeps. The way that the warrior killed in today’s battle is the hero of tomorrow’s.

Sam doesn’t think about these things often because it’s a little morbid, planning out his brother’s afterlife in his head. But sometimes, like now, he can’t help it. Dean’s well on his way to drunk, high off another kill, and Gordon, the hunter whose bacon they just pulled out of the proverbial fire, is ordering another round.

The two of them are trading war stories while Sam sits there and thinks about golden halls and horns of mead and the sweet sound of women’s voices. Sam’s thinking about Valhalla because it’s better than remembering the way Dean’s face looked spattered with blood. Of the way his eyes had been flat and empty when they met Sam’s.

There are words they don’t mention. There always have been. Words like ‘mother’ and ‘Mary’ and ‘love’ and ‘Stanford’. But lately Dean’s added a couple more to the list without consulting Sam first. And Sam keeps tripping the landmines his brother’s laid down around these words, accidentally at first and then on purpose, pushing as hard as he can. ‘Dad’ he says, and ‘dead.’ ‘Deal’ is the only one they agree on, and Sam isn’t going to mention it if Dean isn’t.

He wishes he was more like his brother, wishes Dean were more like him. He just wants to connect with someone, here in the gray fog of After where it’s just the two of them and the Impala, and she’s not talking. But then again, neither is Dean. Not to Sam, anyway, although when he gets back from meeting Lenore to find his brother holed up in their motel room with Gordon, he can taste Dean’s confession in the air like lightning.

He drags Dean outside to talk, to push and shove and claw at that stone exterior, and isn’t sure whether he’s doing it for his brother or for himself. Because when Dean swings his fist into Sam’s face the way Sam knows he wanted to when Sam left for Stanford, Sam’s glad. It’s the first contact he’s had with his brother in weeks and for a few seconds of burning, stinging pain, he feels like Dean is here. Like he didn’t burn his brother to ash along with their father’s body.

But Dean’s good at hiding, and later—even when he’s actually talking about it, offering Sam a free shot—it’s like it never happened at all. Sam wants to take him up on the offer, wants to wade through bruises and blood until Dean remembers that he’s still alive. But he’s afraid he won’t be able to stop, or Dean won’t, so he waves the moment off instead.

When they get into the Impala, Dean smells like death.

***

Dean’s going to Valhala when he dies; Sam knows this instinctively. Sometimes he wishes that Dean would be a little less eager to get there, that’s all.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Dean’s going to Hell. He doesn’t have any illusions on that account. He’s responsible for too many deaths to end up anywhere else. But he’ll be damned if he lets Sam end up there with him. Pushy bastard is going straight to Heaven whether he likes it or not. It’s one of the first things Dean ever promises himself.

Lately, though, he worries that he isn’t strong enough to do what has to be done.

When he tells Sam the truth about what Dad said to him in that cramped hospital room, the sun coming off the water is blinding. But that’s okay because he can’t stand to see the question in his brother’s eyes. He still doesn’t know if the answer is “yeah, I will” or “fuck you, you stupid son of a bitch”. Knows which one Sam is going to expect and wonders how long it’ll take Sam to push him on it.

Dean’s always known that he’ll do anything to keep his brother safe. Dad always expected it of him and, more importantly, he’s always expected it of himself. The fact that Sammy’s a full-grown man on the verge of pulling an Anakin doesn’t make any difference.

Dean can imagine a world without Sam—he remembers the three years Sam was away at Stanford clearly enough—but he doesn’t want to live in it. He knows he’s weak for feeling that way, but he’ll do anything to keep Sam with him, the same way he’ll do anything to keep Sam safe. Those two parts of himself have never been at odds before, and Dean isn’t sure which one will win in a knockout fight. Keeps praying, begging, that he won’t have to find out.

When the confrontation finally comes, he feels sick to his stomach. He’s watching Sam sleep it off in a hotel bed that’s seen better days and wishing that he could just call take back. But that won’t change anything, and if Sam doesn’t remember any of this in the morning, it won’t make a difference. Even though Dean’s hoping for a bout of alcohol-induced amnesia.

That he made a promise to Sam isn’t the problem here. He can always tell his brother, _too bad, you were drunk, fuck off_. No, the problem is that he’s pretty sure he meant it.

Dean’s made a lot of promises over the years, and he’s broken some of them—who hasn’t?—but he’s never broken a promise he made to himself, or to Sam. It looks like he isn’t about to start now, and what the hell kind of brother does that make him? He wants to know when “keep Sammy safe” turned into “keep Sammy safe from himself” and was punctuated with a bullet to the heart.

The next day, when Sam makes it pretty damn clear that he remembers everything and isn’t going to let Dean off the hook, Dean realizes that he never had another answer to give. Because he made a promise to himself years ago, and he’s going to keep it.

***

Dean’s going to Hell, but he’ll be damned if he lets Sam end up there with him. If it comes down to it, he’ll give his brother a one-way ticket to the pearly gates. And then he’s taking the express route down. Down to Hell with the speed of a bullet because his brother can force him to deliver a world without Sam, but no one can make him live in it.


End file.
